Feels Bad Class Features


Psychic Class


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A lot of people have discussed the balance over all, but I'd like to address a more connotative concern. Even if the class was balanced right now, you end up with some strange build up/choices.

Things like choosing a subconscious mind where you're reading the flavor and getting excited about the feature your about to get sour pretty quickly when you realize; "oh, I get a cool flavor from these, but no mechanical benefit and they have Huge downsides." Maybe that's necessary to balance out some big benefit elsewhere, but I would prefer if the benefits and negatives were placed together. It's not different as an end result, but it FEELS better.

Similarly you get your description for unleashing your psyche and you are thinking, awesome, free focus points. Then you see the unleash you get by default, and you just don't even want it. Maybe the downside is necessary because the free amping is too strong without it, so each unleash ends up looking like a net negative, but again, it FEELS bad.

I've never come across a class where I'm reading through a class feature wondering if I can just not take it. Can I just forgo a subconscious mind and not get a class ability boost? Can I unleash with just the free amp per round? It's a weird situation.


On the unleash... simple answer would be to have your first default unleash be shorter. No upside, no downside, takes 3 rounds to charge up, only lasts 2 rounds. It's clearly beneficial (free focus points!) but you're just not pushing yourself like you do with the other unleash effects.

For the subconscious mind... I wouldn't want to cut off the design space of packaging flaws in with features, but it's true that "component substitution" feels pretty weak as features go, and key ability feels like something that people should just have, and not have to pay for. Throwing some sort of advantage that's a bit less generic on the feature might help.


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For sure, I'm not at all opposed to having downsides, I'd just like them to be closer to the upside they are making up for. The component substitution is a cool bit of fluff, I like it, but mechanically does this only matter if you can't speak? Maybe that comes up as often as frightened, but I haven't had it come up in a game I've played yet...

Grand Archive

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....so does Rage 'feel bad'?


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I was pretty sure rage had an upside? For a Barbarian, rage is entirely optional. I assume they wouldn't use it if it didn't have a benefit.


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Rage does have an upside, but you also do lose a point of AC and can't take concentrate actions that don't come from your feats other than Seek.

And I guess raging is optional? It's optional in the same way performing sneak attacks is optional for a rogue, or hunting prey is optional for a ranger. You don't have to do it, but you're losing out on a lot of what makes your class fun and effective to play if you do.


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Rage has a downside, but

a) the upsides significantly outweigh the downsides, and

b) the class chassis is built to cope with the downside.

At the moment, the downsides for Psyche are often too severe to warrant the cost.

Dataphiles

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I’d definitely push for Self-Defense to be the default psyche instead of focused intent.

Self-Defense has an upside that’s useful from level 1 (unlike focused intent which has an extremely questionable upside until much later) and a downside that isn’t too bad (except for maybe on distant grasp).

That or give a choice between the two and calculated reasoning at level 1.


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Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

While I definitely see the benefits of the self defense psyche, I would not like it to be the default (I also dislike the current default, the main benefit to unleash psyche to me is free amps, and as someone who just wants to use blasting cantrips, the bonus to spell slot damage means nothing and the ac penalty is too scary). Making self defense the default would force a support role onto the class, and while I recognize that as probably the strongest option right now I really hope psychic can be changed to be a strong damage option.


Just to clarify, my point wasn't entirely about the balance. When you include the free amps, focused intent might be worth it, but the fact that the upside feels so separated from the downside makes it feel bad.

Grand Archive

I do not feel the same way. It seems like game mechanics just like Rage, you get an upside, you get a downside. Though, I think that -2 to AC is a bit much. A -1 on top of being a non-armor proficient, 6 HP base class is probably enough.


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You seem to misunderstand Leo. Rage gives +1 damage twice per round at the cost of one ac. Unleash gives +1 damage twice per DAY at the cost of 2 ac, and you have to wait until round 3 to activate it. This is VERY obviously a net negative. Presumably it was made that way to make up for the free amps.

This feels bad because the free amps were mentioned previously in the text, so I don't mentally associate the two. That's my whole point with this post, try to keep the positive and negative more closely associated.


Gaulin wrote:
While I definitely see the benefits of the self defense psyche, I would not like it to be the default (I also dislike the current default, the main benefit to unleash psyche to me is free amps, and as someone who just wants to use blasting cantrips, the bonus to spell slot damage means nothing and the ac penalty is too scary). Making self defense the default would force a support role onto the class, and while I recognize that as probably the strongest option right now I really hope psychic can be changed to be a strong damage option.

I think for me, an ideal default Unleash would grant you a bonus occult cantrip for the duration of your Unleash, and also allow you to designate a cantrip as a psy cantrip for the duration. I don't think I'd give the default amps out, but you could apply any amp you know to that cantrip. Probably also create a feat that allows you to pick from any list for your bonus cantrip.

This would heavily reinforce the amp-cantrip playstyle and open up more on-the-fly options for Psychics, as well as provide an option that the psychic could use all day long instead of only as long as their slots hold out.

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